This is something I have been working with lately as our walks tend to be quite bland (well, for me anyway, Frodo thinks all the sniffing is GREAT!) and take forever to get anywhere with Frodo's nose running the show. I know I've said it a hundred times before, but I swear this dog is part scenthound.

He has also been much more uncertain on walks since we moved into the new house. Ears held back a lot, not totally into them in general, though I am not sure what the reason behind it is. My guess right now is that it is due to the cars that drive along the parkway.

In an attempt to remedy my boredom and his uneasiness I have started trying to make the walks more interactive and ask Frodo for more out of his walks. The main way I have modified our walks is that I have given Frodo the opportunity to run, and to be rewarded for running, which is something he is rarely able to do and is reinforcing in itself for him.

So I have been putting Frodo in a sit stay or a down stay, walking about 15-20 feet away from him, releasing him and hauling butt until he catches up with me. I started by holding out my hand as I ran and asking him for a hand target, which worked well, and now occasionally I let him run past me and then ask him to return to me. Both ways earn him mucho doggy-dinero. Then I pick up his leash and we continue to run for a while, as I don't want him learning that the fun stops when he comes to me or when I have his leash.

Unfortunately this game will only last as long as the snow piles separate the walkway from the road and the trails are empty enough that I don't have to worry about bikers flying along the trail. Frodo is really really good about ignoring the bikers, he really doesn't seem to care that they are there at all, but it would be too easy for him to run in front of one and hurt himself and/or a biker.

There seems to be some very large, wide-open spaces throughout the park that we can probably do this one once spring comes, though I can never tell whether these are actually fields or whether they will be bodies of water! I surely hope so as he really seems to enjoy the game.

On the same note, when he is in working mode his recall is pretty good, when we are in walking mode, it is non-existent. The other morning I walked Frodo up to Farwell Park, a very small square park that we walk to almost every day. Frodo wanted to sniff a tree in the middle of the deep snow covered park. The park was absolutely empty so I dropped the leash and just continued walking. Nothing. I called his name, he looked at me, and I took off running. Nothing. I made it all the way to the other side of the park and he did not care. I yelled treats and he came running like a bat out of hell.

A strawberry banana smoothie for me, and a raw bison filled kong for Frodo.

In addition to that, during our shaping session today Frodo offered 2 behaviors that made me very very happy. Our actual purpose for the training session was having Frodo target one of my socks with his paw. I want to teach him to put his paw on my foot when I lift my foot up. He seems clueless about targeting my foot, so I decided to try a sock and eventually put said sock on my foot.

Now for the super awesome parts, yes TWO of them! I don't often get TWO awesome behaviors from this dog in a sessions...

1. He offered a bow. We have worked on bow like...forever. On and off for, literally, months without him ever offering the behavior or even anything close to it unless I lured it. I wasn't really sure that he even really understood what we were doing. Then he offered it. Little nub wagging and everything. I threw massive amounts of treats at him.

2. Early in the session before he had the targeting of the sock down to a science he was trotting around my room finding other, more familiar, things to target like can covers and books. On one of his rounds he passed something, whipped around and laid down. I didn't even see what he laid down on so I went over and he was on the very edge of his MAT! The towel that we have done only two sessions of mat work on was sticking out of it's hiding place and he didn't even hesitate to lay down on it! I hope this is just the beginning of a long-term, serious relationship between these two.

After our shaping session I read a bunch of Control Unleashed by Leslie McDevitt because I am participating in a 12 week book study of this book and hopefully helping Frodo on his reactivity with the information that I learn during the study.

Yesterday during class, Robin asked me if I was going to get Frodo back into Nosework. I haven't really given it much thought lately, with my finances being what they are and with everything else going on right now, but I decided to do a session tonight with his dinner. It was the first session I have done since moving to Minnesota (about 2 months ago), and let me tell you, he certainly hasn't forgotten how to use that nose of his!!

It only took finding one hide before he was screaming in the bathroom while I was hiding his food and running like a bat outta hell to get to the search room. I'd also forgotten just how much he loves this game, and beyond that, how freaking GOOD he is at it. He has definitely found his niche in this world.

And that brought us to this. Sitting in our almost unpacked new living room with our respective treats. It's been a good day, despite the raging blizzard outside!

Our next shaping class is on February 6th and this time we were given actual homework. I love getting homework, it keeps me on track and I don't tend to slide through 82 different things to work on, like I do when I try to set me own homework.

Frodo, Ryan and I have started going to a shaping class on Sunday (yaaaaay shaping, as you may remember, this is only of my goals for 2011, to learn to shape better) with a bunch of really awesomesauce people and other dogs.

This week was our second week and Frodo did quite well for the most part, though he did react to a greyhound who (in his opinion) came too close. After the reaction, and it wasn't a big one, he did continue to work fine with a barrier between himself and the greyhound.

As for actual shaping today we worked on muzzle work, which went really really well thanks to Megan, who brought in a basket muzzle that Frodo could easily get his snout in! He was much more willing to leave his nose in this muzzle than he has been with the other mesh muzzle that we have been working with.

The rest of the class we spent working with his plush monkey that I am trying to teach him a play retrieve with. He did really well, better even than our work at Ryan's house. If I hold the monkey he will bite it, and sometimes even hold it for a second. If I put the monkey on the ground he will bite it repeatedly, but isn't so keen on lifting it off the ground. I need to choose one of these methods and move forward with it, instead of dabbling with both!

That's about all I can think of at the moment, my brain is pretty fried. I now have TWO jobs, which is great and will definitely keep me busy (and hopefully pay the bills), one of which I start tomorrow and work pretty much every day, so if the blog starts to slow down a bit, that is why. I also finished Frodo's awesome dog bed that I have been working on, and I have pictures but uploading them seems like a giant task right now, maybe tomorrow...

Frodology101

About

A training blog about the trials (not the fun kind!) and tribulations of trying to get my 4 year old insecure, reactive, ill-mannered, thick-skulled Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Frodo, ready to move from rural Pennsylvania to the city of Minneapolis in the span of a summer. Grab a seat and sharpen a pencil, class is in session!